The Butler Hacked It!

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The Butler Hacked It!

After all the finger-pointing at hackers following this week's Web site attacks, the hackers are doing some finger pointing of their own. And most of them are pointing at the U.S. government.

It proves, once again, that the Internet is fertile breeding ground for all kinds of conspiracy theories. And when the subject is the Web itself, it's a veritable conspiracy population explosion.

In a widely circulated post to an email list, civil rights advocate Jim Warren floated the theory that the Clinton administration staged the attacks to bolster proposals to greatly expand government powers of surveillance.

"What better way to 'prove' the need for massively expanded government surveillance and create a frenzy of support for it?!" wrote Warren.

The evidence: Clinton designated electronic "law enforcement" a top priority and allocated $240 million for wiretapping purposes in his budget this month.

Days later, the National Security Agency's main spy computers experienced "inexplicable" crashes, followed by attempts to cripple Internet commerce with attacks on key Web sites by hackers unknown.

Warren also cited massive phone service disruptions in the Midwest this week and glitches experienced by Concentric Networks' otherwise "very reliable mail-server."

"Suddenly, crackers seem to have become far better than any have ever been before. But then again – what organization has the best computer and phone-system crackers in the world?! There is No Such Agency," Warren wrote, alluding to National Security Agency.

Interviewed on Thursday, Warren said, "It's a disturbing coincidence that immediately after the Clinton administration declares war on cyber-terrorism ... suddenly we have a continuous cascade of denial-of-service attacks on the highest-of-the high on the Internet.

"On the one hand it's ridiculous to think the NSA, or the Clinton administration, or the FBI would pull something like this. On the other, it's insane to think Nixon would organize a break-in to wiretap his political opponents."

Anyone looking for further evidence that the men in black were involved in the Web site attacks can read a CNN article published Wednesday.

According to the article, which is now making the rounds in conspiracy circles, the FBI contacted ZDNet before it was hit by any denial-of-service attacks.

"ZDNet confirmed to CNN that the FBI contacted the company before it knew it was being hit and has begun to investigate," is the quote most often included in emails submitted to Wired News' tips hotline.

Unfortunately, most of the emails neglect to include the preceding sentence, which suggests the FBI was proactively contacting major sites before they were crippled by an attack.

The rash of emails also included several from panicky Web surfers suddenly unable to access their favorite sites – regardless of how obscure they were – fearing that they, too, were victims of dastardly denial-of-service attacks.

More than likely, they were just typical, everyday slowdowns on the "World Wide Wait."

Meanwhile, the long-time hacker periodical 2600 suggests the attacks were engineered by "corporate America" to justify a hacker crackdown.

"After all, who would be better served by a further denigration of the hacker image with more restrictions on individual liberties?" asked an unsigned editorial.